Word: bak
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Bunch of villains chases the hero through back streets clogged with human traffic. Nothing new there. But watch the way Thailand's Tony Jaa uses his daredevil energy and grace to obliterate action-movie clichés in the pummeling, exhilarating Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. With a spring in his sneakers, he vaults over a pyramid of tires, a flotilla of cars and a class of children while being pursued by a gang of thugs. He dives through a ring of barbed wire, glides under moving vehicles. He jogs up pedestrians' backs and tiptoes on their heads. In this thrilling...
...fellow to fill the void. He's young--28--and good-looking, with a quiet élan to match his athletic skill. He's also a throwback to kung-fu film's early days, when stars and stunt men alike took a licking and kept on kicking. Ong-Bak has no crouching, no hiding, no wires, no pixel-perfected stunts. Like Chan's early epics, it convinces you that the mayhem is real, that the star is enduring the pain for your pleasure...
With its primitive action premise (a sacred MacGuffin has been stolen; you go get it back), Ong-Bak needs the things Jaa can add. And there are plenty. As Ting, a country-boy studying to be a monk who has been taught Muay Thai martial arts and goes to Bangkok to retrieve a missing Buddha head, Jaa battles a series of Asian and Caucasian bruisers with fists, feet, elbows, head--he uses them all in his full-body barrage--with a sleek intensity and jaw-swiveling impact unique in movie martial arts. He also knows how to take a fall...
...Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, the stunt man-turned-actor leaps across boiling oil, ballets above an array of tuk tuks and beats up anyone foolish enough to challenge him. The insane inventiveness of the stunts?done without special effects, wirework or apparent concern for Jaa's life and limb?has turned into box-office gold in Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and even France, where the film found a fan and international distributor in action auteur Luc Besson. Besson recut the film and secured a U.S. distribution deal with Magnolia Pictures. Expectations are high that Ong Bak...
...Bak: The Thai Warrior...